Bennis v. Michigan

The justices appeared sympathetic to Tina Bennis during the oral arguments presented on 29 November 1995. Justice Ginsburg asked the administration's lawyer, "What was Tina Bennis supposed to do?" Despite this in March of 1996, the Court voted 5-4 to support the administration against Tina Bennis. Writing for the majority, Rehnquist found that the forfeiture did not violate the Due Process Clause. He reasoned that a long line of cases held that property may be forfeited even though the owner did not know it was being put to illegal use. Rehnquist felt the Takings Clause was not violated because of the legal transfer of the car from Bennis to the state. He noted that the government is not required to pay an owner for forfeited property.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Thomas wrote:

Forfeiture of property simply because it was used in crime has been permitted time out of mind . . . This case is ultimately a reminder that the Federal Constitution does not prohibit everything that is intensely undesirable . . . Improperly used, forfeiture could become more like a roulette wheel employed to raise revenue from innocent but hapless owners whose property is unforeseeably misused . . .

Ginsburg noted that, "Michigan has decided to deter johns from using cars they own (or co-own) to contribute to neighborhood blight, and that abatement endeavor hardly warrants this Court's disapprobation."

Four justices disagreed with the majority. Justice Stevens wrote:

The logic of the Court's analysis would permit the States to exercise virtually unbridled power to confiscate vast amounts of property where professional criminals have engaged in illegal acts . . . While our historical cases establish the propriety of seizing a freighter when its entire cargo consists of smuggled goods, none of them would justify the confiscation of an ocean liner just because one of its passengers sinned while on board.

Stevens held that confiscating the car would not prevent John Bennis from committing a similar act in another location. Stevens noted that Bennis "had been sighted twice during the previous summer, without the car, soliciting prostitutes in the same neighborhood." Stevens wanted the decision reversed because of a lack of connection between the car and the act, and because Tina Bennis, "is entirely without responsibility for that act. Fundamental fairness prohibits the punishment of innocent people."